‘He is still a good commander,’ I said, ‘but the deaths of his wife and child have unhinged him.’
He looked at me sympathetically. ‘As a man I cannot blame him for his anguish but as high king I must rebuke him for his recklessness when I next see him. Unless the Armenians kill him and defeat his army, that is.’
I thought of the training that Surena had received at Dura and that day when I had inspected his army.
‘I do not think you need worry about his battlefield prowess, Orodes.’
My friend’s mood was lifted later when I gave a great feast in the palace and invited all my senior officers and those of Mesene, Babylon and those with Peroz, the banners of these kingdoms hanging on the wall. The chamber was filled with laughter and chatter as the wine and beer flowed and men reaffirmed friendships and forged new ones. Thumelicus insisted on arm wrestling a great hairy brute from the Zagros Mountains who served in the ranks of the Susianans and we were stunned when he failed to beat him with ease. The bout ended in a draw and with the two of them, both very drunk, embracing each other and weeping like small children. It was a most curious spectacle.
Orodes was seated on the top table in the place of honour flanked by Nergal and me, with our wives beside us. Next to Gallia sat Domitus with Miriam beside him. She was uncomfortable with the rowdiness going on a few feet in front of her. She picked at her food and engaged in polite conversation but appeared horrified at the behaviour of some of her husband’s officers.
‘It is good that they can indulge themselves,’ he told her, ‘some of them won’t be coming back.’
Matter-of-fact as usual, his words did nothing to brighten her mood.
Gallia, once again in the company of her former second-in-command Praxima, displayed no such concern. She and the Amazons were eager to get to grips with the Armenians and the Romans, particularly the Romans. Much about Rome I admired, especially their military methods and just as Spartacus had copied them in Italy so had I adopted them for Dura’s army, but Gallia hated the Romans. She hated them all for enslaving her, for invading Dura when we had returned to Parthia and, strangely, for reducing the Gauls to a subject people, despite the fact that she derided her own race for their passivity.
I was still worried about Peroz’s welfare and was debating whether to leave him and his men behind at Dura. But the affront to his honour would have been great and in any case I needed all the soldiers I could muster, especially with Nergal’s shortfall, and so he would be coming with us. In any case he and his men had been doing a lot of work on the training fields working with Vagises and his horse archers, so to leave him behind would be most unprofessional on my part.
Regarding the Babylonians, their foot had fought beside the legions at Susa and their horsemen had likewise battled the army of Narses and Mithridates. The purple-clad foot soldiers had suffered heavy casualties and had crumpled during the battle but at least they were professional soldiers, unlike those from Susiana who had been recruited from farmers and hill men judging by their threadbare appearance. I would have preferred it if Orodes had left them in his homeland but for political reasons he had felt compelled to bring them.
Dura’s army, marching twenty miles a day, could reach Hatra in under ten days, but Babylon’s foot soldiers were not as physically fit as Domitus’ men and so the rate of march our combined forces achieved was fifteen miles a day. Fifteen miles tramping across hard-packed dirt under a hot sun with the air thick with dust kicked up by thousands of feet and tens of thousands of animals. The assembled army numbered fifteen hundred cataphracts plus their squires and camels, five hundred men of Babylon’s Royal Guard, twenty thousand horse archers, eighteen thousand foot soldiers and their hundreds of wagons and mules, and the camel trains of Dura and Mesene — two thousand beasts in all.
And because there were no water holes between the Euphrates and Hatra water was strictly rationed. So we marched with parched throats, sweating bodies and dust-covered clothes. The luckiest ones were the scouts: companies of horse archers who provided an immediate screen around the army and, further out, Byrd and Malik’s ghost riders riding far and wide to ensure we not surprised by bands of Armenian raiders. If the enemy was mustering at Nisibus it was highly likely that they would send parties of horse south to gather intelligence as to our movements.
‘There is no point in them sending out scouting parties,’ said Domitus sweating in his helmet under a spring sun. ‘All they need to do is talk with the drivers and guards of the caravans to learn what is going on.’
‘One of the disadvantages of so many caravans traversing the empire,’ I said. ‘The Silk Road carries gossip as well as goods.’
Apart from the scouts on patrol all the other horsemen were on foot leading their horses. There was no point in sitting in the saddle tiring our horses while we marched at the rate of a legionary on foot carrying his furca — a four-foot long pole with a crossbar at the top, to which was strapped a rolled-up leather bag holding his stash of personal equipment, which could weigh up to sixty pounds. Then there were of course the oxen pulling wagons loaded with Marcus’ siege engines. So Gallia, Peroz, Nergal, Praxima, Orodes and myself led our horses as Domitus left his position in front of the colour party of the Durans carrying their golden griffin standard to join us.
He looked at Orodes. ‘Shouldn’t you be on your horse, being king of kings and all that? I bet your brother never walked while on campaign.’
‘First of all,’ said Orodes, ‘he was my stepbrother. Secondly, I do not intend to change my habits just because I am high king.’
Domitus turned to Peroz. ‘What about you, young prince? Do you think King of Kings Orodes should be on his horse?’
Peroz, clearly awed by being in Orodes’ presence, was reticent to say anything, smiling awkwardly and then bowing his head when Orodes looked at him.
‘Leave him alone, Domitus,’ said Gallia. ‘Orodes has always been down to earth and will not change despite being high king.’
Orodes smiled at her. ‘Exactly.’
‘What is more remarkable?’ I asked. ‘That Orodes is king of kings, that Nergal and Praxima are regarded as gods in Mesene, or that Domitus managed to find a woman who would agree to be his wife.’
Everyone laughed and Nergal slapped Domitus on the back. It was just like the old times when we had all been together and Orodes had been a mere exiled prince. How things had changed since then.
For five days we made steady progress in a northeasterly direction towards Hatra. Each night we erected a large camp with an earth rampart, ditch and palisade toped by stakes that contained all the men and animals. It was a giant square in the middle of the barren landscape, each side measuring twelve hundred yards with four gates at each point of the compass. The men of Dura and Mesene slept in oiled leather tents; the officers of Babylon in round, voluminous tents and the foot soldiers of Babylon and Susiana in the open with only a blanket for warmth. I thought it most unprofessional but Demaratus informed me that the royal treasury did not have the money to purchase tents for its foot soldiers.
‘But it has enough money to provide the men of the Royal Guard with great canvas lodgings when on campaign,’ I remarked one night as I walked round the camp with him and saw the sorry sight of his foot soldiers sleeping on the ground, huddled together in their threadbare blankets.
‘They are lords and the sons of lords, majesty. Men of quality who live in fine houses and enjoy rich living.’
‘They are soldiers, Demaratus, just like these men lying on the ground.’
He looked in puzzlement at me and then at his foot soldiers. ‘These men are not nobles, majesty, they are merely poor villagers or homeless city dwellers who joined the army because it gives then regular pay and food.’